Tag Archives: FCC

We have been on the 5G track for a while and now, as players have been very adamant of taking the wind out of the sails of Huawei, we need to realise what they have, or merely what they have left. So to play nice with the Americans (and a few other governments), we have been drowning in all these new 5G devices, and close to exactly 2018 years after a girl named Mary forked out a little bub named Jesus of Nazareth, we were treated to all kinds of news like ‘New evidence confirms Samsung’s 5G smartphone for Verizon, codename Bolt‘, it seems that the writer Cosmin Vasile was on the ball, and I stipulate only seemed to be. For a former PR person claiming to be a tech journalist we gave him an initial pass. And when he gives us “However, Verizon announced early this month that it has teamed with Samsung to release a 5G smartphone in the United States in the first half of 2019. Now, we have more info that confirms the carrier’s statement” we get the image that there is something happening. It is only now that content creator Joshua Swingle gives us ‘Verizon’s 5G Samsung “Bolt” is actually a mobile hotspot, not a phone‘, so there we see the two parts that matter the most. The first “In actuality, Samsung’s upcoming device is a battery-powered mobile 5G hotspot. At the moment, details are pretty scarce, but a pair of Wi-Fi certifications (via VentureBeat) suggest there are two variants under development right now with the model numbers SM-V570N and SM-V570V“, and the second is “The Verizon model, on the other hand, makes use of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 modem. This means it’ll be compatible with the radio frequencies used by the carrier for 5G in the US. While “Bolt” may not be the 5G smartphone everyone was expecting, Verizon customers won’t be missing out on anything. The number one carrier is still expected to offer a compatible version of Samsung’s 5G Galaxy S10 model when it launches“, the problem is that both sources are relying on Verizon to honestly inform them and that is where the problem starts, Verizon is in over their heads plain and simple. It is up against AT&T who rebranded some version of 4G as ‘5G Evolution’ and they are up against Huawei who is a lot more advanced at present, whether or not in America, others can judge Verizon for lagging behind foreign providers soon enough and that amounts to a multi-billion dollar fiasco. In addition, USA Today is giving the people “top executives from wireless powerhouses Verizon and AT&T will give keynote speeches where they are expected to outline why 5G will change the world. Both have launched limited 5G service in select cities, as consumers await the release of mass-market phones that can access the faster 5G signals. The talk will continue to heat up in February in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress show, where more manufacturers are expected to show off new 5G phones“, we can argue how valid ‘limited 5G’ is, and whether it is actually a valid version of 5G, but that is a debate for later time.

The issue of Verizon becomes more apparent when we consider GSM Arena, which in the past was a really reliable site (and it might still be), however (at https://www.gsmarena.com/there_could_be_as_many_as_five_galaxy_s10_models_lite_vanilla_plus_and_two_5g_ones-news-34909.php), we clearly see the S10 Bolt as a 5G mobile phone. I am willing to accept that GSM Arena is working on good faith with supplied information, in all this we need to wonder whether it is Verizon handing different sources different information, especially in light of: “the Beyond Bolt (Galaxy S10 Bolt) will be a Verizon-exclusive (and will feature a larger battery, though exact numbers are unknown at this point)“, which seen against Venturebeat (at https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/04/samsung-bolt-gets-wi-fi-certification-as-a-5g-hotspot-not-a-galaxy-phone/) where the people get: ‘Samsung Bolt gets Wi-Fi certification as a 5G hotspot, not a Galaxy phone‘, even as we cannot state for certainty how this all started, it seems that there is a clear path of deceptive conduct on a few levels. The entire deception part becomes more polarised when we look at Tom’s Guide who gives us “The fifth device will be known as the Galaxy S10 Bolt, Dutch blog TechTastic is reporting, citing sources. It’s unclear exactly how it’ll get its name, but some important features might tell the story. For one, it’ll work over 5G, allowing you to access the ultra-fast network in areas where it’s available this year. Additionally, Samsung will bundle a larger battery in the Bolt, according to the report. Lastly, it’ll be exclusive to Verizon.” The story (at https://www.tomsguide.com/us/samsung-galaxy-s10-bolt,news-28967.html) gives us a Dutch blogger as the source and they all repeat one another, so as Venturebeat is opening the eyes of many, we see that this game of deception is played on a much larger stage, optionally implying that Samsung and Verizon are working together to create visibility by trying to take it away from Huawei (which in the end is a valid marketing ploy).

It is Forbes that give us clarity by not giving us any. It makes sense and when we see: “both Verizon and AT&T have announced a partnership with Samsung to deliver a ‘5G Galaxy smartphone’ in the first half of 2019. And yes, we know exactly what this is. “5G is going to be about more than just a network. Customers will eventually be able to connect in near real-time to unforeseen possibilities,” said David Christopher, president of AT&T Mobility and Entertainment. “Together with Samsung, we plan to bring the best in technology and innovation to our customers. The future we imagine with 5G is just beginning, and it is a great time to be a consumer.”” Forbes gave us the goods, as others are talking about the 5G Bolt part, Forbes gives us David Christopher who is seemingly informing us on how great it is to be a consumer, he leaves out the part where the consumers are getting misinformed. For the most we want to blame bloggers and technology reporters validly hiding behind words like ‘likely’ and ‘we expect to see’. Yet until the official unveiling in Spain at the end of February we will not actually know what is real and what is not.

That remains to be seen, unless we see at the end of February that Samsung is revealing an actual S10 bolt as a 5G mobile phone, these writers were tools to be used for the entertainment of Verizon, to create a marketing hype on a false product, if there is an actual S10 bolt being released, it also implies Samsung to be part of all this. You see, you do not give two different devices the same name that is a marketing no-no on a very high level. So far we have seen the actions by AT&T and now Verizon as well to be hiding behind the ‘be first’ tactic and not actually being there. It is as I wrote yesterday (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/01/04/dianhua-x2-xinche-xing/), “these players are putting it all one the table, betting everything they have to make a 5G turnaround whilst there is more than one indicating chance that this will falter. That is the gambling stage and all this is done without realising that Huawei does not need to bet, they merely have to deliver what they are promising making the others fold, losing it all over hardware that they cannot provide, or even better are already failing to manufacture“, and by the way, my premise was supported by quotes in the Wall Street Journal, and a few other highly respectable publications on the global scale, I knew what I was looking into. I partially hoped to have been wrong, yet less than 24 hours later we see additional sources merely proving my point. In addition, PC Magazine gives us only 9 hours ago (at https://www.pcmag.com/news/365649/surecalls-5g-booster-cant-extend-at-t-verizon): “AT&T is flat-out calling gigabit 4G “5GE.” Real 5G—5G NR—is coming on a range of frequency bands up and down the spectrum, with the first round of 5G phones and hotspots only supporting some of them“, as well as “Those bands, called millimeter wave, are what Verizon and AT&T are launching first, and they provide tremendous speeds but at very limited range. Unfortunately, the FCC hasn’t even set the rules for millimeter-wave boosters yet, according to SureCall CEO Hongtao Zhan, so those will probably come next year. “I don’t believe we’re the bottleneck of this. There’s no rule, there’s no standard, there’s nothing,” he says. Millimeter-wave boosters can’t be built yet, but Zhan says that’s where we’re really going to need boosters. Millimeter-wave frequencies have trouble penetrating walls. “There will be zero signal inside your buildings; it’s going to be horrible. Something has to be done to solve that problem”“, so not only is 5G a mess, there will seemingly be no reception in the building, so why buy into 5G for now? And is it not interesting that the consumer is mostly unaware to all this? In support we also get: “In my experience, he’s 80 percent right. Verizon has shown me millimeter-wave signal penetrating at least somewhat into buildings, but it drops off pretty quickly. There will definitely need to be some sort of in-building booster for millimeter wave, if the carriers want that frequency’s advantages to work inside.” All that information is missing form so many sources. At least, for me personally there is an upside, with all these additional needs, the need (and value) for my IP is growing close to exponentially, so I feel decent for now. Yet, the people who seem to adhere to David Christopher, president of AT&T Mobility and Entertainment and his view of “a great time to be a consumer” with all the non-given information, at what point will we use these publications to start up class actions against certain players to get 100% refund on hardware we get to keep? What level of punitive damages with the US courts and other courts define as ‘non damage’ and therefor non claimable just to keep AT&T and Verizon afloat?

America is all about suing people, not about holding them accountable and that is something we might see change in 2019, the entire 5G mess is becoming a plane of deception giving rise to certain people and their plans of deception to keep the interest focussed away from other players in this field. And that is not even the start of the failing we see in the US, according to the Gulf Times (at https://www.gulf-times.com/story/617959/Vodafone-one-of-the-first-to-go-live-with-5G-comme) where we see: “From today, GBI will be the first entity to be commercially connected to Vodafone’s 5G network. Moreover, Vodafone Qatar will be the first to commercially connect several consumer customers to its 5G network across Doha starting today. “We are proud to have been the first company to experience the power of Vodafone’s 5G network and now look forward to benefit from it commercially to enhance our operations. We congratulate Vodafone on officially receiving its 5G licence and extend our full support in the journey to accelerate the country towards becoming one of the most technologically advanced in the world,” said Abdulla al-Ruwali, GBI executive director and managing director“, and it is not AT&T, or Verizon. It is Vodafone of all places that has switched it on, completely licensed. Now, this is merely one source, although I got it via Reuters, there are optionally still issues in place and the debate is not over, but there you have it, the US claiming all kinds of stuff and the 5G trophy goes to the Middle East, how is that for a reality check?

The 5G market is a Wild West stage and now we see (or are implied to be notified of the fact) that the camel jockeys and not the cowboys (or Indians for that matter) that seemingly take the victory cake home for now.

Any business has issues; the one that states that they do not is lying to you. We understand that there is mostly smooth sailing, that there are bumps in the road and that things are not always on track. We have all seen them; we might have all seen them near our desks. It is a reality, if a lumberjack is working, there will be wood chips, such is life. So when we see the Telstra ‘purpose & values’, we see: “The telecommunications industry is experiencing enormous growth; network traffic is growing faster than any other period of time and digital technology is changing our world. Telstra is at the heart of this change—and we’re helping make it happen by connecting everything to everyone“. That might be true, yet when you price yourself out of a market, there tend to be consequences.

So when the Business Insider gives us merely 2 days ago: “It looked like there were national problems with the Telstra network again today, but the Telco says no” (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/telstra-is-down-nationally-2018-6), we see a troubling setting. So the quote “The Telstra network appeared to have another national meltdown, with services in most of the major capitals disrupted in the first half of Tuesday, but the company denies there were any problems with its mobile network.“, concessions on social media were made and the services were back up in the afternoon. Yet the damage was done. Not the fault, the disruption or the faulty service. The fact that Telstra was in denial is the issue. So when we also see: “Telstra said there was no issue for Telstra customers and the Telco’s 3G and 4G networks. “There was a vendor platform issue that impacted mobile virtual network operating services for a small number of wholesale customers,” a spokesperson said“, we see the issue that Telstra has moved on through carefully phrased denials. It is a tactic to use, it is however the wrong tactic, because it takes away trust and Telstra did not have that much left to begin with. One source gives another view entirely; it is the view that makes CEO Andy Penn too confused for his own good and the health of the company. In regards to the question that ABC host Leigh Sales asked, which was: “How can shedding 8000 jobs, not make your service worse?“, the response “Mr Penn deflected the question and talked about the complexity of a Telco network and the inevitability of network interruptions when dealing with such sprawling physical technology assets and software. After the host tried once more to ask the question, the Telstra boss steered clear of the jobs losses and moved the conversation back towards his message of increased simplicity for customers“, we merely see the fact that Telstra is playing a dangerous game of stupidity. Deflection is bad and shares will get slammed (and they did). You see, the proper answer (or better stated a proper answer) would be: “As we are moving to a flatter organisation, management is now directly in touch with the workforce, management will get the full scope of issues in their area of responsibility. There is no longer a delay of information trickling on the path of 2-3 managers deciding where what goes, the buck stops with the manager in charge. Basically the lower managers get more responsibility and as they resolve the issues also a much better reward. The direct exposure to issues and answering the questions of staff members and consumers will lead to a much better understanding and also decrees the timeline of issues and questions requiring a resolution“. You see? I resolved that question, I gave an answer, I exceeded the expectation of the current customer base and I did not deflect. So perhaps I might be the better CEO Andy? Now, we can add that this is a work in progress and as any company needs to adjust settings; with a flat organisation structure it is much more direct and easier to adjust. So yesterday’s interview, published today, I merely required seconds to set the stage in a more positive way. Yet Telstra has more issues. Their mobile plans are still horrendously expensive; in some cases placed like Optus will offer 20 times the data at the same price and that was merely a month ago. So Telstra needs to realise that unless they truly become competitive with some of their competitors. In addition when we look at IT News, we see (at https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-completely-changes-how-it-sells-enterprise-services-494853) the issues that some expect. Issues like ‘Confirms it took ‘too long’ to revamp enterprise core’, yet the revamping is not the issue, actually it is as there was no ‘real’ revamping, merely adjust the tailoring to fit other elements (as I personally see it). You see, the danger offered through: ““It is the ability to provide fixed voice, unified communications and messaging with add-ons for mobile and applications on a per seat pricing basis for our midmarket customers. “It will be all digital.” It will be ordered in minutes, provisioned in minutes to hours, and everything will be billed electronically with the ability for the customer to flex up and down in volume in real time“. This is what I call the folly setting. It starts with ‘our midmarket customers‘, which translate to ‘corporations and those with money’, which is fair enough, yet the economy is still in a place where the cost of living is way too high. The rest is merely a statement of ‘buy on our website or through a phone app’; there will be no negotiating, no personal touch, not a warm touch to any of it. Merely a ‘buy this by clicking or go somewhere else’. You can rephrase it again and again, but that is where it is heading and the people have no real high regard for an automated Telstra, so that will hammer the share prices for at least an additional 2%-3% in a negative direction. So as more and more people go towards the ‘Yes’ oriented Optus stores, we see that in some places Telstra is setting up movable selling points (Westfield Burwood), yet in the direct cold light of day, it is not merely a transforming business, it is the setting where Telstra looks less appealing than before. That requires addressing and Andy Penn did not go the right way about it from the beginning, yet in the setting we now see it, it is even less appealing than ever before.

The AFR takes it in another direction. There we see ‘Telstra’s strategy is all about killing Optus, Vodafone and TPG‘. So (at https://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/telstras-strategy-is-all-about-killing-optus-vodafone-and-tpg-20180620-h11mtt), we see ” competitors are clearly going to be most obvious victims of his 2022 strategy, which prioritises mobile above everything else in Telstra’s sprawling portfolio of businesses”, yet with the website as it is and the announced 5G rumours that are nowhere near 5G we wonder how much trouble they are in. so even as we see the boastful “Telstra’s mobile business currently earns about $4 billion a year on revenue of $10 billion“, it will have little effect until the data offered is a hell of a lot higher than they currently offer. It might have been a good moment of timing for me, I ended up with twice the data ant half the price. The largest population really cares about a deal that is 75% better and that is not merely me, it includes well over 60% of all households and pretty much 99.43% of all students. Even if Telstra proclaims that they only care about midmarkets, the shareholders will not understand how they lost out on millions of customers and that change is not reflected in anything we heard. It does not stop there. With the setting of the quote “Telstra said on Wednesday that the number of Australian households with no fixed broadband service is between 10 and 15 per cent. It expects this to rise to 25 to 30 per cent as 5G is rolled out around the country“, we see that Telstra is to lose out on more markets. The shear fact that Vodafone figured out in the EU is an optional gain of momentum for Vodafone, yet the hybrid options that Telstra failed to see could cost them even more in the 2020-2024 period. In addition, when we see “Penn’s decision to adopt an aggressive roll out strategy for 5G plays into the established trend of greater use of mobile networks relative to fixed line, much of which is driven by the widespread frustration caused by the poor performance of the NBN Co”, considering the part I discussed yesterday in ‘Telstra, NATO and the USA’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/20/telstra-nato-and-the-usa/) alerted us to a previous stunt played with 3.7G, yet the setting is reflective here. In part it is expected to be merely temporary. So when we see on the Telstra site “Verizon and Ericsson recently decided to test the 5G network on a moving target — a car being driven around a racetrack — and were able to record a 6.4gb/s connection”, now I get it. It is a test setting yet the speed is still off by almost 40%, which is not good. It is better than what we have now, but getting out in front before the technology is truly ready is very dangerous. In addition CNet had another issue that also reflects in Australia, as well as a league of other nations. With “Cybersecurity for 5G networks had been a top priority for the previous FCC under Tom Wheeler, a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama. But the current Republican-led agency believes the FCC should not have authority to ensure wireless providers are building secure networks. “This correctly diagnoses a real problem. There is a worldwide race to lead in 5G and other nations are poised to win,” FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, noted in her statement. “But the remedy proposed here really misses the mark.””

You see, I have been writing for the longest time on the benefits and powers that 5G will give on a whole new range of options, yet the overly non-repudiation ignorance in Telecom town is staggering. Their view is almost on par where the NSA decides to set the admin rights to the guest account and leave the password blank. The dangers that people will face on that level cannot be comprehended. The moment the ball is dropped, the damage to people will be beyond comprehension. It boils down to Cambridge Analytica times 50, with all privacy set to public reading. The business will love the amount the amount of data; the people will be less enthusiastic as their consumer rights and needs are no longer in stock with any shop using the internet for sales. I raised issues on that field in March 2017 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/13/the-spotlight-on-exploiters/), yet that was merely the lowest setting. At that point, the Guardian (the writer that is) raised: “The mass connectivity it allows for will also help expand the so-called internet of things (IoT), in which everyday appliances and devices wirelessly connect to the internet and each other“. Yet, this is in equal measure the danger. You see as Telstra gave visibility to ‘Lessons from CES 2018: everything is connected‘ (at https://exchange.telstra.com.au/after-ces-2018-everything-in-tech-is-connected/) and Huawei is giving us ‘Huawei Connect 2018: Activate Intelligence’ (at http://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/events/huaweiconnect2018), they will likely all miss out on giving proper light to non-repudiation. It needs to be the cornerstone, yet for now there seems to be the global ‘understanding’ that someone is working on it, or that ‘block chain solves it’ and a few other hype responses that merely are deflections of a situation not understood and even less properly attended to. To better understand it, I found a promising paper (at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.04027.pdf) from Mohamed Amine Ferrag, Leandros Maglaras, Antonios Argyriou, Dimitrios Kosmanos, and Helge Janicke. In the conclusion we see: “Based on the vision for the next generation of connectivity, we proposed six open directions for future research about authentication and privacy-preserving schemes, namely, Fog paradigm-based 5G radio access network, 5G small cell-based smart grids, SDN/NFV-based architecture in 5G scenarios, dataset for intrusion detection in 5G scenarios, UAV systems in 5G environment, and 5G small cell-based vehicular crowd sensing“, which gets us to the real setting that this part is still some time ahead and even as telecoms are rushing to get 5G first to get the better market share, it appears that the players have no clue on the time they will lose by not properly investigating and setting the steps to get non-repudiation on the proper path, it will be seen the moment some CEO decided to listen to marketing and give a first roll out of 5G, whilst not listening to support as they are a cost and not an asset. At that point the situation will unfold where the clever hacker ends up having an optional access to 100% of the available data on several floors and at that point the people attached to any of that will have lost whatever choice they had in the first place regarding their privacy, their accounts and their data. It had all been denied to them.

This was seen in the Economist last year where we saw: “The flaw lies largely with the weakest link: the phone system and the humans who run it. Mr Mckesson and the bitcoin victim, for example, suffered at the hands of attackers who fooled phone-company employees into re-routing the victim’s phone number to a device in the attacker’s possession“. You see this is not about non-repudiation, it is about authentication and that is not the same. There is a whole league of issues and in part because the solution is still not a true given, it is in its initial stage and even as we accept that non-repudiation is sometimes essential, it is not always essential, there is a larger issue on where and when it is needed and it cannot be when the user decides because roughly 92.556% is too ignorant on the subject. The impact on a personal life can be too far stretched and that is where the problem starts. Telstra fails here, in their Cyber security White paper 2017 it comes up once and there we see: “Transaction approval should satisfy certain characteristics – including but not limited to integrity, non-repudiation and separation of duties“, that is it! In a ‘Cyber Security White Paper‘ that give s on the front page ‘Managing risk in a digital world‘, non-repudiation needs to have a much higher priority and in a 52 page paper that gives ‘acknowledgements’ all kinds of high priced firms mentioned in the end, with the ending of “We can assist your organisation to manage risk and meet your security requirements“, so what happens when customers want clear answers on non-repudiation? What is currently in play and available?

The non-acknowledgment that even, if not practised in 2017, or 2016, might be fine, this is about what comes next? That part we see on page 45 with ‘The increased adoption of incident response drives the growth of the after breach market‘ and “In Australia, the highest usage for emerging security solutions is in ‘incident response’, and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) are used the most in Asia. 47 per cent of organisations surveyed in Australia and 55 per cent in Asia have adopted ‘incident response’ toolsets or services“, as well as “announcement of legislation around mandatory data breach notification by the Australian Government“, so how long until non-repudiation makes it to the main focal area? I reckon one incident too late, at that time Telstra becomes a ‘responsive telecom‘ nothing pro-active about it. When the first victim comes and the 99% realises that there is no actual non-repudiation properly in place, how many will remain with Telstra? And it is not merely them, a much larger global Telecom provider pool has that same flaw, the one who did think ahead will be gaining exponential growth the day after someone got hit and we have seen the growth of non-repudiation need for almost 4-5 years, so it is not coming out of the blue.

So, when we see the sales pitch called executive summary in the beginning, the mention of “That organisations are prepared to take such acknowledged risks speaks to the urgency of their move to cloud services“. So is non-repudiation addressed there? and the start of that page with “Organisations and individuals are dealing with new security and business opportunities, many of which are fuelled by mobility,” which of these sides are giving in that you and only you bought the 50,000,000 shares at $29.04 and the loss of 63.223% (roughly) we saw in the 45 seconds after that. At that point, or a boss that you and only you bought them, would that perhaps be good, bad, or perhaps was blaming a hacker the solution?

so in that report, where we saw ‘Mobile malware‘, ‘Advanced Persistent Threats‘ and ‘Web and application vulnerabilities‘; When we realise that the report gives us ‘Number of days compromise went undiscovered (median)‘ with the average value of 520 days (almost 18 months), would the flag that ‘not an employee’ had access helped perhaps in finding it sooner than 18 months?

It all read like a cloud sales paper as security is less complex. It does not solve the non-repudiation issue which would soon be at the footsteps of telecom companies and as they are in denial (for too long that something needs to be done, whomever solves it, that will be the winner of the 5G race and they will gain the 5G business from those claiming to have any non-repudiation and those who did not bother. It is not sexy, it is not limelight, but it will be the cornerstone of personal and corporate safety lot sooner than most people realise.

It all matters because flattening the organisation means that there is either space provision for that branch of security or it falls in the gaps and is forgotten until too late. Andy Penn can deflect all he can at that point (or his successor), but at that point the impact of such an event will be too devastating to respond to or correct for.

The issue remains complex, and if people remember the issues I have with Microsoft, will also accept the part I now give them, because one quote on this from Microsoft is bang on: “Can we say we have non-repudiation by putting a check in a box on a certificate template? Absolutely not, we must first jump through many hoops to be sure that only the owner of a private key associated with the certificate ever has access to it. This involves many controls, policies, procedures and security practices, some of which are listed above“, it is a much harder field, but an essential one and even as financial services are eager to embrace it, data handlers need to start doing this too.

We need to acknowledge that: ‘authentication is easy, non-repudiation is hard‘, and as 5G, automation and cloud systems evolve, the legal need for non-repudiation grows almost exponentially for every day that the three are active in a corporate and personal environment. Those who ignored that essential need end up having no legal foothold on any claim whatsoever. In my mind companies who ignored it will lose their IP and most legal options to get it back the moment it gets downloaded to another place. That IP will soon thereafter be owned by someone else, or it ends up in public domain where anyone can use it free of charge, both are nightmare scenarios for any firm relying on IP.

I forgot what fun it is to go up against PwC, I missed slapping them around and the article ‘Netflix and Amazon ‘will overtake UK cinema box office spending by 2020’‘ was a mighty fine reason. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/14/netflix-amazon-uk-cinema-box-office-film-dvd-blu-ray-pwc) gives us a few things. The title is fine, I have no issue with that and there is every reason to believe that this is true. I always prefer and love to watch the big screen, but I know that I am a majority here. It is the subtitle that got me. With “Film industry will remain ‘pretty healthy’ but DVD and Blu-ray sales will go into ‘terminal collapse’, says PwC” they gave me a reason to have a go at them. As I search deeper and deeper, we are confronted with a wave of titles that have been released on Blu-Ray and DVD, yet there is no Netflix date, they do not seem to have any titles released to disc from 2017. So that is the first group. I reckon the Marvel fans would race to the shop to pick up Logan as soon as Wolverinely possible. The second thing I found is that a decent list of TV series is absent. This is a lot harder to predict, yet Grimm, Lucifer, Sleepy Hollow, Battlestar Galactica and a list of others do not even show on Netflix. This makes the need of Blu-ray consistently there. There is no doubt that those with really good bandwidth will prefer Netflix, so there will be an impact, yet the size of that impact is not a given for now. You see, as Net neutrality becomes more and more endangered, we will see shifts. We saw President Trump put Jessica Rosenworcel in the FCC seat and she apparently champions net neutrality, yet there is a rustling in some bushes, especially the adult entertainment bush. What people ignore, or like me do not care about is that certain ‘settings’ is seen in International Business Times (at http://www.ibtimes.com/july-12-net-neutrality-day-action-will-slow-down-your-pornhub-videos-2552375). It is a place like ‘Pornhub’ that brings the news. The quote “Pai’s proposal would remove the FCC’s authority to enforce net neutrality and other consumer protections while simultaneously allowing companies including Verizon, Comcast and AT&T to create “slow lanes” that force consumers to pay more for certain sites or as a competitive move among corporate telecom rivals“, is one thing, the second quote from a related article gives us “The Washington Examiner reported Trump deliberately withdrew her nomination when he took office. That move temporarily gave Republicans a majority in the FCC. Since then, the FCC has voted to revoke net neutrality regulations. If Trump’s renewed nomination leads to her confirmation, as is expected, then this idealist could return to take on the telecom industry head on.“, these quotes give only an indication of what will happen next, it is seen a little better when we consider the Law Times (at http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201706126217/focus-on/focus-u-s-and-canada-diverge-on-net-neutrality), which is 3 days old. Here we see: “With the possibility of broadband rate regulation looming on the horizon, companies investing in next-generation networks hesitated to build or expand networks, unsure of whether the government would let them compete in the free market,” he wrote, advocating for a return to a “light-touch” approach to Internet regulation“. This is now the indication, as the FCC rolled back a few things, they leave it with the providers and a ‘free market’ to offer ISP packages, which of course comes at different prices. So, as net neutrality comes back, it comes with the option that is linked to a Service Level Agreement and they tend to come with $$$ labels attached. In addition we see “The CRTC’s decision and policy position on “differential pricing” arose out of Videotron’s 2015 launch of Unlimited Music, a premium service that allowed customers to stream as much music as they liked on services such as Spotify without having the data use count against their monthly allowance“, so as we get premium ISP options, how do you think that this will impact the Netflix use? Are you sure that this billion user service will not come with nails attached? You see, the issue is no longer mere net neutrality in speed; it is now ‘the elimination of data caps for home and mobile Internet use for Canadians?‘ This implies not just Canada; it is merely a stepping stone for America as they use Canada as a show case, what will happen when the gamers are added? This is a simple math part. Assassins Creed Unity sold over 2 million copies (exact number unknown), now in December 2014, the owners had to download a patch that was 34GB in size. So consider 2 million downloads of that patch, how congested will the internet get? As the number was global, there is no way to tell how the patch impacted on areas, yet as caps are removed, we will see more and more shabby developers getting new patches out ‘as soon as possible’ making us download patches more and more. So as there are globally well over 105 million Consoles (next Generation only), the millions of Gaming PC’s, now consider the amount of patches and the impact on the internetworking’s, as well as the Internet of Things, because bandwidth hits all options. Now consider 3 massive games released per month, game download and patches and now consider how Netflix is impacted, because it will. I am putting those two groups together because they get their ‘net mobility’ from the very same fuel tank. Now add Spotify and a few other players in this domain. There was never any question that there was a need for net neutrality, yet in all this it goes via an ISP and that player is greedy, so if the cap cannot be pushed in place, or when it is removed, why do you think will happen next? There will be an impact on speed.

This is set in an easy equation (not an accurate one, but it shows certain factors). Fuel = data_amount * speed * users, so if data_amount is infinite, how will that impact speed? The same we see when the user base become massively larger, speed is again impacted. yet there is another consideration, to keep speed high, the number of user and data_amount needs to remain in a state of balance and set at a nominal place, when we realise that this is not an option from day one, speed will always be impacted and that is where the ISP’s are now, creating in a conjoint setting the Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and the option to price it all. The FCC can claim it is out of their hands and as the FCC is about avoiding ‘anything that negatively affects competition and innovation in the sector‘, the FCC rules are altered and whatever comes back might seem nice, but will come with the ability to let the ISP call the shots. As such Netflix, unless it sets ironclad contracts with ISP’s, these users will see a shift of options and usage, at a price that is.

How does this make sense?

You see, even as the numbers are global based, the US has a lot more congestion than the UK at present, yet the current growth as seen, which is before the upcoming 5G data need, the ISP’s have been milking their system and these providers have not been addressing the ‘fuel tank’ they had. Now, this issue is in the UK and Western Europe is nowhere near the mess that the US is in, but as the UK rural growth is now growing at an accelerated rate, the congestion is still becoming a factor, Cisco tells us: “Services like YouTube, iPlayer, Netflix, NOW TV and Amazon Prime Video continue to be a huge draw, which has in turn helped to fuel demand for superfast broadband connections”, in addition, we get “Cisco forecasts that the average Internet user is expected to generate 140GB (Gigabytes) of Internet traffic per month in 2021”, which is average and I expect that to be a conservative low estimate. Now consider that a Netflix movie can take up to 7.5GB, now consider 3 million people in London alone will watch a Saturday movie, and now consider that in the UK another 15 million will do the same, do the numbers start adding up? Even if these 18 million do not start it on the same time, there will be a sizeable overlap, there is enough indication that congestion will be an issue, which either ups the price of the internet, or there will be an increased agitation for Netflix. This is why there is enough questions on ‘terminal decline’, there is in addition consideration that when 5G hits, the curve will steepen by a lot. It is too soon to predict a near exponential growth for data need, but it is not unrealistic, especially when we consider the push from 3G to 4G and data usage curve when most moved to 4G.

Now I go back to these gamers, even as the Statistics state the gamers group to be a steady penetration of around 42%, their data need has grown more than exponential. The Next generation consoles, as well as the growth of being online whilst gaming has grown. So this is not just about downloads and patches, merely the online presence which fuels uploads, Even as some statistics state that they are on average 5 hours per week online, there is enough data to question that. Polygon gave us the title ‘PS4 owners spend about 50,000 years a week gaming’, again a global number, but that already gets us an average of 7 hours a week, which is 40% higher and these are 2016-2017 numbers. As it all comes from the same ‘fuel tank’, I hope that we can clearly see that it impacts the ability to service Netflix. I believe that congestion will be its worst enemy and as we see a shift in costing, the prediction is unlikely to become reality (yet, I am willing to accept that I could be wrong)

So back to the Guardian article! The quote “PwC predicts a “terminal decline” for DVD and Blu-ray sales from £1.22bn in 2016 to just £533m by 2021. The report predicts that internet video will overtake DVD sales this year, but some analysts claim this has already happened“, I believe that the market will adjust in a different way. I believe that the initial shift will be in price. The price of $40 for a new movie cannot be maintained with monthly services and as the margin is large, we much consider that shift. It has been stated a few times that “high-definition mastering costs for Blu-ray will run close to US$40,000 per title with a pressing cost of US$2.00 per Blu-ray disc”, so at 100,000 discs sold, the making comes to about $2.50, so selling at $20 would still leave a large margin, There is a given that mastering goes down in price, yet at this pace, the impact becomes negligible. So when we consider that owning a movie we like at $20 is still a good idea, even if we have Netflix, my view is that there is an impact, yet not to the degree PwC claims.

Could PwC be right?

Yes, that is indeed the case, especially if the economy does not pick up. If the economy stays in the bad shape it currently is in now, Netflix might be the only option for some people, yet the options will still depends on whatever internet options that household has. In that, we see the impact on both sales down as the economy faltered whilst buying movies is equally a non-option.

There is one element that has been ignored by me and it is time to address that now. The mention ‘some analyst’s claim this has already happened‘ is one that needs a look at. It comes from the January article ‘Film and TV ​streaming and downloads overtake DVD sales for first time‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/05/film-and-tv-streaming-and-downloads-overtake-dvd-sales-for-first-time-netflix-amazon-uk). one element is ‘Netflix has rapidly grown to 6 million UK subscribers since launching in 2012‘, which is fine and the issue that physical retail is in decline cannot be countered either. The fact that the UK cost of living has been through the roof; so as we see the price of a Blu-ray being equal to 2 months of Netflix, people adjusted their budget. Yet in all this, the internet bandwidth remained an issue. As long as it could be pushed through Wi-Fi and more importantly the Free Wi-Fi places, people were fine, yet just like some of the more advanced filters, when those places start actively blocking Netflix, the user game changes too. You see, Spotify demands cellular data and does not stream via Wi-Fi. So remember the earlier formula? Spotify has 50 million users. Now consider that the other elements were speed and data amount. As these services grow congestion will be a logical consequence, meaning that the ISP’s have reasons to push through the SLA solution, solving all their issues and none of yours.

Netflix is here to stay, nobody opposes that, there will be an impact on DVD/Blu-ray sales and nobody opposes that either. It is the part of ‘terminal collapse‘ that I oppose and I am certain that at some point it will happen, yet not in the time period PwC says it will be. I could be wrong of course, but I don’t think so.

If they were wrong, then nothing is lost, for that PwC analyst there could be a golden future in show business for them as a the new member in Orange is the new Black Season 7 named ‘Wall Street Bitches‘ (speculated conjecture).

In the end?

In the end, the Guardian article does have one larger benefit; it is bringing congestion issues to the surface, as such the article had a good side, In the UK most people know it as ‘Internet Rush Hour’, yet what happens when the infrastructure will no longer provide for that side? The BBC gave us in 2011 “UK broadband speeds drop by an average of 35% from their off-peak highs when most people are online in the evening, according to a report”, yet the growth that we have seen then was at the beginning of 4G, even as the ISP’s upgraded their equipment, the user base In the last year alone, went up by 1.5% for the entire population. In addition, over the last 5 years, the amount of inactive internet users decreased by 13.3%, which is a lot, also consider that the UK Netflix user base is expected to double between 2015 and 2020; these numbers show a dangerous part. The largest one is that the numbers seem to have been incorrectly speculated. I get there as the growth of subscriptions grew by 1.8 million during 2015-2016, which was almost a third of the 100% expected growth. You might think that the Guardian article is therefore a lot more accurate, I still disagree, merely for the fact that congestion is a larger risk, which now gets us back to the Net Neutrality issue. Because as this grows, ISP’s will have additional ammunition to start thinking and pushing for Service Level Agreements on consumer markets, it is what the FCC sees as ‘anything that negatively affects competition and innovation in the sector‘, yet what the ISP sees as commercial opportunity. Here I truly hope to be wrong, yet some sources (read: ISPreview) are already revealing prices to rise close to 10%, in addition, the prices will rise even more next year due to the 2017 Digital Economy Act. This is where we get back to the ‘Pornhub’ part. You see, I give not a toss about them, but they illustrated a part that other sites are now getting into. When we look at Endgadget, we get: “There’s one slight issue with age gates in that we’re still no clearer on how they are to be implemented. Proving age using credit card details, the electoral roll and pay-monthly mobile phone contracts have all been suggested, but the government has admitted that forcing you to expose your identity might be a step too far. And so, it’ll likely be some time before this new law can be enforced as the government and newly appointed regulator decide on the best and least intrusive way for porn sites to verify age.” You see, it is not about the fact that it is about adult content, it is about the option to classify, so consider that via politicians (never a good start) to settle on what defines the boundary and needs more than mere access. It is the first time that there would be commercial option to slice services, not cutting them, but restraining the maximum bandwidth. When we see the quote ‘the new data-sharing regime effectively being lawful already’, we might think ‘government’ but that is the least of our concern, it is “Any business that handles large volumes of personal data is required to employ a data-protection officer under the new rules, and any breach must be disclosed within 72 hours”, you might think that this covers it, but what about back-ups, what about social media with multiple ownership over a larger amount of nations? It is the commercial value that is being played with and the EU does not have a great track record when it comes to commercial versus private interest. So as these elements come into play, there are now already three upcoming levels that would cater to ‘Service Level Agreement’, which is defined to charges a person has. It gives one more level that Net Neutrality is already a thing of the past. This is seen in “Reed Hastings seemed to walk away from fighting for net neutrality but his company has done a big 180”, so in the two days that I worked on this, Netflix did a massive corporate ‘about face’, the direct implication of ISP’s and the limit of bandwidth is showing now, almost a year before it actually hits us. News Network (at http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/after-ceo-downplayed-the-importance-of-net-neutrality-netflix-changes-tact-and-rejoins-the-fight/news-story/654c63348e3dbd4f7d697fe322eeb350) also gives us “major Telco company AT & T is in bed with media conglomerate Time Warner. Because of this high level of “vertical integration” there’s a lot more scepticism in the US that companies will be compelled to engage in anti competitive and “non mutual” practices”, which I already knew. Yet the clarity as given in my earlier setting in ‘anything that negatively affects competition and innovation in the sector‘, is now showing its fruition and that is before the dozens of new 5G services come to our mobiles and TV settings. As this collides, and it will! People will happily return to a worry free Blu-ray ad DVD, if the makers adjust pricing and remove the 5 iteration contribution application, the discs will be here to stay for at least a decade or (hopefully) two more.

There is an interesting weekend going on. First we see people waking up to the Microsoft premise that free is apparently never free, in addition, we now see more and more noises regarding Net Neutrality. We will get back to Microsoft soon enough, because there is more to Net Neutrality than meets the eye. First let’s take a look at the definition of Net Neutrality. Wiki tells us “Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication”, now this sounds interesting, but the reality is not that easy as I see it. For example, consider Oracle Forms, who needs the reserved bandwidth, if we cannot deliver, that solution would become an issue to implement. Oracle Forms is not the only one, many other situations exist where priority is essential. Video conferences is one of several. The idea came from Tim Wu, he is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. His paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper can be downloaded at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863.

As any academic work, it is quality stuff, yet, do I agree? I have an issue with the following parts:

On page 1 “Critics, meanwhile, have taken open-access regulation as unnecessary and likely to slow the pace of broadband deployment“, America is about to encounter the point where ALL the TCP/IP addresses have been taken, no more addresses, which means that IPv6 will soon be the only option remaining. You see IPv4 provides roughly 4.3 billion addresses. Companies, people, devices all requiring an IP address (mucho plural), well at some point the end is reached and that point is now, but that is not the entire point of my objections, because “likely to slow the pace of broadband deployment” is about need. I do not see how broadband deployment is hindered by the current system (other than running out of addresses). We have seen an almost exponential growth in getting online. Ever since the broadband has been an option, we have seen spectacular growth. First through normal internet connections, then via cable providers, now in addition we have mobiles with 4G and WiMax providers.

The second quote is “That deviation is favouritism of data applications, as a class, over latency-sensitive applications involving voice or video“. Which might be fair, but for the most, this has apart from specific application NEVER been a true issue. YouTube caches, so I personally have never truly seen an issue, not in over 15 years. Voice is a different situation, is this about VOIP? On one side, in an academic paper we need to keep an open mind, which makes it a good statement, but when we regard government pushed policy “open access alone can be an insufficient remedy for many of the likely instances of network discrimination“, the use of the word ‘likely’ seems a little unacceptable.

The next issue is found on page 158 of the paper “Have broadband operators tended to favour certain uses of the Internet?” To what extent? The goal of this section is to answer these questions, to the extent possible, for broadband networks during the year 2002, so we get answers based on a situation that is 13 years old, so this is BEFORE true smartphones, before quality 3G and whilst 100Mb broadband was rare. 1000Mb is now in some places regarded as slow, we get internet information faster on our mobiles now, than on broadband in those days, overall the growth of speed has been near unparalleled since the beginning of the internet and I am just looking at the last 5 years. The more I read of this 39 page paper, the less this makes sense in the current environment. Not the thoughts by themselves, the thoughts made perfect sense (to a certain degree) in those days. Yet, the ISP’s and Cable providers evolved almost exponential in their offerings. For the same price I now get a little over 10 times the amount I had before. I now end up with 500% download space of what I need (and I have one of the cheapest offers), so far I have not seen any limitation on what I require, so is this a pure American issue? That could be the case, but those pushing Net Neutrality better realise that moving business from US to Canada is not that far-fetched an option, I personally see these events as the FCC seems shooting itself in the foot.

Yet are my thoughts correct? (Always a good question to ask)

Let’s take a look at the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/24/republicans-are-trying-to-defund-net-neutrality-will-it-work/), ‘Republicans are trying to defund net neutrality. Will it work?‘ The quote “This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that contains an amendment singling out the FCC and net neutrality. Notably, the rider would prohibit the FCC from using its most powerful regulatory tool to police Internet providers — Title II of the Communications Act” is at the centre. Yet, what the Washington Post shows is nothing more than a political side.

“Isn’t that what exists today? For the most part. In reality, the world won’t look much different on Friday. Netflix won’t suddenly stream any faster for you. AT&T (T, Tech30) and Comcast (CMCSA) won’t abruptly stop laying down high-speed fiber cables and investing in their networks as retaliation“, after which CNN brings a quote that is surprising “And Comcast can’t slow down file-sharing websites, like it did to BitTorrent a few years ago“, which is more than interesting. Because, for the commerce of the USA file sharing is not a good thing, even though downloading movies is copyright infringement, pursuing these events is a near impossible task, especially when those servers are outside of the USA.

Who supports net neutrality? Now this is the number one question. “AOL (AOL, Tech30), Facebook (FB, Tech30), Netflix (NFLX, Tech30), Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), Vimeo and every other major Internet company are in favour of the FCC’s new rules. They create the content you read and watch online, and they don’t want to face discrimination by network owners who can threaten to charge higher fees or slow them down“. This statement is pretty far out there when you are not an American. In America, when you see places like Comcast, you pay for 75Mbs, 150Mbs and prices go up fast. So from this point is there reasoning for Net Neutrality? I still do not agree, but before going into this we need to look at Sprint, they offer unlimited high speeds with a sharable 10Gb for $100. This is less than 40% of the bandwidth I had 6 years ago at half this price. San Francisco gave me decent prices that are in alignment with what we see in Europe. Again, will Net Neutrality solve this?

Now let’s take a look at those supporters, Facebook and Twitter are data collectors, Twitter is the smaller and Facebook in the larger extent. Netflix customers require download power a lot more than Net Neutrality. The same can be said for Vimeo, AOL and Google+ for that matter. They all are vying for a customer base and when a person gets 10 GB at $100, whilst Europe and Australia enjoy prices like $70 for 200 GB you can see the issue at play. I am wondering whether this is about Net Neutrality or is there an issue with cartelisation in the US? We are so used to see that things are cheaper in the US, the fact that the US is leaps behind when it comes to the internet. That does not address the Net Neutrality. In my view it leaves us with more questions. The fact that prices are so high makes me wonder why a place like the US is not more competitive in that regard. But this article is not about that. It seems that Netflix needs download power to survive, and that is lacking in the US. In addition, it seems that the providers are extremely ‘protective’ on pricing, when investigating prices, TWC gave me “You are visiting our website from an area we don’t currently service“, which I got whilst entering a Chicago Address. So in all this, there is a multitude of issues, which have less to do with Net Neutrality and more about the stranglehold on pricing some seem to keep in the US.

Now am I upset? Well that is not really the question is it? I am like many others a capitalist (to some degree), yet that part has always been drenched in reason. As the information is reaching me, reason is not really a part that the internet providers seem to employ in the US. Especially as they offer internet at 33% of the speed and at 20 times the price. So it seems to me that Net Neutrality, even though in this light might have some effect to some of the solutions depending on the internet, yet the overwhelming thought from me is that as the FCC pushes Net Neutrality, we will also see a shift of the business world seeking an alternative.

When we see an argument that “Comcast could slow down BitTorrent traffic (it did)“, yet when we consider an article by Jacqui Cheng from the 24th July 2010, we see ‘Only 0.3% of files on BitTorrent confirmed to be legal‘, this was from a study that involved 1000 downloads, so 997 were infringing in one way or another, so why is it an issue to slow down BitTorrent?

The first comes from American Library Association head Barbara Stripling “we’re in danger of prioritizing high-quality internet access for entertainment over education“, is this about the costs of a broadband plan? I have seen how this is not cheap, even as the article is only a year old. She also states “Ultimately, “pay to play” only benefits the privileged“, which I can agree with, it will be about usage and bandwidth, Net Neutrality will not up the game for them, it is about pricing and in some cases the prices are overwhelmingly ridiculous.

The second issue is ‘we continue to give more control over the internet to the government‘, which seems to be the case, but why is it done? Draining additional resources, forcing costs that should not be with the government. The quote here is “What’s worse is that we won’t see it coming, because the FCC’s power will creep in incrementally, on a case-by-case basis — a death by a thousand cuts“. Why is the FCC even bothering with this? Regarding the extent of what I saw as it applies to the US, this is becoming an increasing case of ‘Unjust Enrichment‘. Yet, the legal scope is not entirely ready to deal with this from an internet point of view. The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in Schroeder v. Buchholz, 2001 ND 36, 622 N.W.2d 202 that five elements must be established to prove unjust enrichment.

They were:

An enrichment (Telco’s making excessive profits)

An impoverishment (Consumers are charged above their affordable income).

A connection between enrichment and the impoverishment

Absence of a justification for the enrichment and impoverishment

An absence of a remedy provided by the law (clearly in absentia)

It will be hard to prove this part, you see, it is not just about enrichment and impoverishment. The internet world is moving population classes into the haves and the have not, which is a different standard, yet the foundation might apply in finding the remedy for internet pricing, especially when we realise that one in 10 that would end up spending a little over 10% of income to allow for internet (based on the Chicago example), is this an excessive cost? That would be for a court to decide and that decision would not be the same state by state. Yet as that becomes a solution, the Net Neutrality need would diminish.

In the end, I am not convinced that the issues are about ‘neutrality‘, but it is about current technology and about fairness and affordability of the internet, especially when we consider that every child today needs to learn to proper use the internet from a young age, only to keep even with the other players, once the US falls deeper into the pay to play trench, we will see the growth of additional classes of segregation, those who are technically viable users and those who are not. That last one must be avoided at all costs, an issue Net Neutrality as I personally see it will not answer.

On one side, the US starting this works out nice for the Commonwealth (mainly Canada), there is a decent chance that some companies will move to speedier shores. But, let me get ahead of it all, because that might help the entire issue. So here is the initial response I gave:

There is an overwhelming need to be against it. Judgement was not correctly passed here. I do not essentially oppose net neutrality, however, that can only occur if the internet is correctly addressed, which it is not.

You see, people think that they are now better off, but they will be contending for the same bandwidth with a few thousand spammers, who use an equal bandwidth to a few million users. By forcing all in equal opportunity, spammers, and marketeers. We see that in this ‘ruling’ “Broadband providers cannot block or speed up connections for a fee”, so your fee to block is now no longer an option, which might mean that you get to drown in spam. In equal measure, you cannot pay extra to speed up, which is not unfair, but when corporations are no longer given the speed, they will move to other shores, so if places like Equinix (to name but one of many) will move to Canadian shores, feel free to thank those for net neutrality for giving a few thousand jobs to your northern neighbours. A data centre is about revenue, and net neutrality is not evil, but it has setbacks, revenue being one of them.

the next part is in “Internet providers cannot strike deals with content firms, known as paid prioritisation, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers”, so this will inflict massive damage, which means that high pressure connections like Oracle forms will not get a whole new issue, working from home could be impacted in new not so nice ways.

Yet the one part “The FCC won’t apply some sections of the new rules, including price controls”, which than implies that all people will end up paying for bandwidth, there we see the connection to rule one and rule two, if fees cannot be used for speeding up, and prioritization, we could speculate that there is one price, a business price for all, I feel certain that the Facebook family and Google Plus family will just love the new pricing for staying in the loop on a social media level, for if there is no priority control and no speed control, the only price control is one price, and it will be a charged one.

And this is only one side of it, net neutrality will never work when the people cannot be correctly protected from cyberbullies, cybercriminals and cyber hackers, for the mere reason that under these conditions, monitoring will become a lot harder, you see those special accounts also meant that they needed less monitoring, because the origin is known, which is why I personally opposed the view of the White house. They stated “Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not — I repeat, will not include — monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic”, how? Consider yourself in the street, walking, the police is looking for a wanted criminal, now consider where you walk and EVERYONE is wearing exactly the same outfit, do you really think the police will have an easier time finding the culprit? Of course not, now they need to scan every person they pass, not just the person they were looking for in a Green Armani suit wearing purple loafers’ size 12. Good luck finding the right person.

There is a positive issue to net neutrality, there is no denying that, but until they have a way to find the extreme abusers of the net, the neutrality step will make it a lot harder, not easier.

So, you might disagree with me, which is always fair enough, so let’s get the ball rolling on a few parts, because, I have support, I am not the only one here.

They are the first example to use. The BBC (which does not stand for ‘British But Conservative’, at http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31638528), had the following part: “”The internet is built on infrastructure. Even to keep at a steady state providers are going to have to invest in infrastructure but they need certainty that they can get a return on their investments,” said Mr Belcher” which is fair enough, however, if business is no longer investing as they do not get a premium speed, what do you think they will do, stay in the US, or move to Mejico where they revere speed, Ariba Ariba Andale Andale! And when business moves off-shore, where will your cheap provider remain? It will not, it will be pushed out of business fast, or people will have to pay an actual amount.

The next one we get from the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/broadband-investors-should-wake-up-to-net-neutrality-heard-on-the-street-1424975993), here we see “The long-term bull case for cable relies on two main factors: The ability to grow market share of residential broadband and the ability to raise prices. The latter rests on the idea that broadband providers’ pricing power will increase over time, an assumption that could be called into question if the reclassification stands“, my issue, which I do no applaud is the premise on ‘the ability to raise prices’, it seems like a small thing, but do you think that 50.000.000 Americans will like the increase due to the loss of business as they find safer shores? Business relies on visibility, which means speed and priority, when those fall away, that loss must be paid for. There is no way to tell how much more, but it seems to me that an additional $5-$10 per week is not outside the realm of reality, did these net neutrality people figure on that part? I have called big business exploitative on more than one occasion, the other side is that their power was the speed at which they could move, take that away and you get the same need for exploitation, but from a place where they feel safe, they do not feel that in any neutral version of the net.

It is tech liberation that gives us another view on the dangers, issues that I did not completely consider. Not because I disagree, or because it is incorrect, but there is a hint of conspiracy theory here and I am not sure if that ride is one you should focus on, but I will not withhold it (at http://techliberation.com/2014/09/26/net-neutrality-and-the-dangers-of-title-ii/). It is not a new piece, it was written in September 2014, which gives us “As I’ve noted before, prioritized data can provide consumer benefits and stringent net neutrality rules would harm the development of new services on the horizon. Title II–in making the Internet more “neutral”–is anti-progress and is akin to putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The Internet has never been neutral, as computer scientist David Clark and others point out, and it’s getting less neutral all the time. VoIP phone service is already prioritized for millions of households. VoLTE will do the same for wireless phone customers“, you see, streaming services, bandwidth requiring services like Oracle Forms (one of many) are all about the proper priority. When that falls away, we get black-outs in data, which makes a system fall over, yet here we see another side, which seems to agree with the FCC. Most companies have VOIP, not an issue there. But VoLTE is another matter, Voice over LTE must be a monitoring nightmare to some. I am not talking about the intelligence branch (it worries them too), but about the Telco’s. Once we get free Wi-Fi AND free VoLTE, what will telecom companies be left with? When all your calls go across a simple Wi-Fi the game changes, I would think that roaming over free Wi-Fi using VoLTE is the best thing and traveling sales executive will ever face, now consider the Telecom companies with no more Roaming revenue, can you see the pain they would feel? So even if it is a valid view, is it a correct one? You see, I do not know, but I have seen Telco’s sweat blood because of the fear of denied ‘easy peasy revenue’, so there is my view in those matters.

The one missing part is where I wrote in regard to the cyber-illegality actions. In my view, Cyber-crime is hard to solve, most often it does not get solved, because the seekers were too late. Now consider that group and consider the additional delay because the hunters did not have to look in certain places, now that this part is gone, they will have to look everywhere, how will that help solve crimes? I now get back to a quote Fox News had: “No one disagrees that the Internet should be free and open. The president’s plan just does not accomplish that goal“. I agree with this, I will take it one step further, we all had free internet because business drive reachability and innovation (for reasons of greed mind you), when that drive is removed, it becomes a service for all (which is fine), but one that ALL have to pay for, so how did that oblige towards the goal of ‘free internet’? This will drive the need for stronger regulations in regards to ‘fairness’, which will than remove the term ‘open internet’ as well.

I am not against Net Neutrality, but until it is a global thing, which is actually globally ‘enforced’ (read accepted), Net Neutrality will only achieve in driving business to a place called elsewhere.